Epitaph of Koison
created: Transcription from stone (CDL).
source date: First third of sixth century BC
language: ar; en; fr; de; grc; grc-Latn; el; he
availability: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Deed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. All citation, reuse or distribution of this work must contain a link back to DOI: https://doi.org/10.60760/unibo/igcyrgvcyr2 and the filename (IGCyr000000 or GVCyr000), as well as the year of consultation. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)

From †Oliverio's papers [...], n. 14, fig. 25-26, whence [...], 20.745; [...], n. 4; [...], n. 1; [...], n. 164; [...] 001. Cf. [...], p. 31 (= [...], pp. 452-454).

Κοίσōνος στάλα [...]
[...] ἔστασαν ἑταῖροι

Κοίσōνος στάλα [...][^a1] [...] ἔστασαν ἑταῖροι[^a2]

[^a1: Κοίσōνος στάλα [...] | Κοίσōνος | Ἀλϙίσονος | Κοίσōνος στάλα · φθι | Κοίσōνος στάλα το͂ Κάρνιος εἰμ' ἐπὶ τύμβōι·]

[^a2: [...] ἔστασαν ἑταῖροι | μένōι δ'ἔστασαν ἑταῖροι | νούσōι δὲ φθιμένōι μνάμαν μ'ἔστασαν ἑταῖροι]

La stèle de Koisôn [...] a été dressée par ses compagnons.

The stele of Koison [...] was erected by his companions.

La stele di Koison [...] è stata eretta dai suoi compagni.

لوح كويسون التذكاري [---؟] كان قد نصب من قبل أصحابه.

This being the only inscription written boustrophedon, we catch from [...], p. 413 that it was already exposed at the time in room 2 of the then Antiquarium (today Office of the Department of Antiquities).

As both short ends of the stone are broken off, its original dimensions and placement are impossible to infer, except from the content.

As the word 'stele' and the verb meaning 'to erect' show, this was a standing stone to be read looking from the centre alternatively to one and the other longer side. The verb being usually at the end of a sentence and the deceased person's name being an important information at the beginning of the text, it can be inferred that the first line is to be read at left from below upwards and the second line from above downwards.

Depending on the following formula, the first word 'stele' should be used at the accusative, in relation with the verb 'to erect' or at another case if the text had two sentences.

Metrical analysis: Peek's preferred restoration, producing only one dactylic hexameter, supposes a moderate loss of the upper part. This reading is quite possible. However we left the question open in the translation for an alternative reading, supposing that more than one half of the stone might be lost. This would provide a distich made of two dactylic hexameters, a solution for which Peek also offered less cautious restorations.